French bank warns clients to prepare for global collapse

[cabacaba]

Megadoom wrote "Rome didn't have to deal with 8 billion people well into overshoot. Exponential growth will kill us, and while the history of Rome has many analogies to our current government and problems, the numbers involved today put it on a global scale, a scale never seen before. Therefore the fall will not be gradual but violent and catastrophic". I could not agree more. Why do people not get this? Comparing what happened in Rome to us is ridiculous. The same can be said about comparing the great depression to what is unfolding here. There are so many fundamental differences between us and the people back in the great depression it isn't funny. We have MANY more people now. They had farming skills, knew how to hunt, trap and dress anything. They had calloused hands from work, they did not sit in some air conditioned cubicle all day doing nothing. They did not have much to lose as most had noting to start with. They used outhouses and pumped their own water. They had no electricity but used wood stoves to cook and for warmth. It is preposterous to compare modern people to the men and women of those days. They still had sex and breathed and the comparisons stop about there. Soon our mission will be to become them!!!!!!!!!.................................Bruce

Good comparison. I was there.. The biggest difference is the government. Today's government is much more restrictive than the '30s. Plus we had a sound gold dollar then. There just wasn't any money around and very little debt. Today is just the opposite. Way too much debt, too many cheap easy dollars floating around... Today's daily survival depends on a complex infra structure that will collapse at the first financial shock... The two greatest things I can remember after WWII was indoor plumbing and electric lights. Outhouses in the winter are not fun.... We had plenty of food in the '30s because grandpa had a farm and sawmill all paid for...  Of course, we worked daylight to dark. The people in the cities had a hard time with food...   

[picasso moon]

My grandparents went through the Great Depression in NYC.  NYC had electricity, gas stoves, refrigerators, bathrooms with toilets that flushed.  Same with all the other big cities.  People in the cities depended on farmers travelling into the city so they could buy fresh produce/eggs/etc.  And it wasn't always that fresh.

Attitudes and skills are different today so I'm definitely not saying things would be "the same".  I'd be fearful to be caught in a big city should TSHTF.

During the Depression NYC was surrounded with good food producing land on Long Island, near Upstate and north and central New Jersey. Today, the vast majority of that once good food producing land is now suburbs and exurbs, filled with people who get hungry too.

You do the math... 

At that point, in fact, there were still farms in NYC itself, ie Staten Island, i remember farms operating there into the '60s.

[Bruce]

Megadoom wrote "Rome didn't have to deal with 8 billion people well into overshoot. Exponential growth will kill us, and while the history of Rome has many analogies to our current government and problems, the numbers involved today put it on a global scale, a scale never seen before. Therefore the fall will not be gradual but violent and catastrophic". I could not agree more. Why do people not get this? Comparing what happened in Rome to us is ridiculous. The same can be said about comparing the great depression to what is unfolding here. There are so many fundamental differences between us and the people back in the great depression it isn't funny. We have MANY more people now. They had farming skills, knew how to hunt, trap and dress anything. They had calloused hands from work, they did not sit in some air conditioned cubicle all day doing nothing. They did not have much to lose as most had noting to start with. They used outhouses and pumped their own water. They had no electricity but used wood stoves to cook and for warmth. It is preposterous to compare modern people to the men and women of those days. They still had sex and breathed and the comparisons stop about there. Soon our mission will be to become them!!!!!!!!!.................................Bruce

 

My grandparents went through the Great Depression in NYC.  NYC had electricity, gas stoves, refrigerators, bathrooms with toilets that flushed.  Same with all the other big cities.  People in the cities depended on farmers travelling into the city so they could buy fresh produce/eggs/etc.  And it wasn't always that fresh.

Attitudes and skills are different today so I'm definitely not saying things would be "the same".  I'd be fearful to be caught in a big city should TSHTF.

Yes indeed you are correct. So let me clarify my post. The MAJORITY did not have electricity or indoor plumbing.............Bruce

[nomore]

Where I live you can still find farmhouses that predate the Great Depression that have not been hooked up to either indoor plumbing and/or electricity.

I know of a lady in her 90s who rents a hand's house (a type of house built for farmhands, think duplex) out on her farm that has electricity but not indoor plumbing...it rents for $100 a month. Anybody who lives in it has to go pump water & schlep it inside (like for bathing or dishwashing) or buy it (like drinking water).

[TheDoctor]

SocGen advises bears to sell the dollar and to "short" cyclical equities such as technology, auto, and travel to avoid being caught in the "inherent deflationary spiral".

I'm wondering what the point is of shorting things.  When the markets tank, is there going to be anyone there to help you recoup your profit?  Will the markets even be open?  I'm surprised this article is not saying abandon all hope ye who enter this market, buy precious metals.  Going short implies that when you want to cash out, there's still a market to cash out into, yes?  I'd say it's not doomerish enough!

Just because you know the ship is sinking and the lifeboats are already full doesn't mean you can't party as she sinks.  I've recently stocked up on "SH" and "SDS" - ETF's that short and double-short the S&P500, respectively.  The markets won't go to zero overnight, and precious metals will deflate along with everything else, but probably less so as in the 30's.  Cash and shorting will be king, and then eventually will come the fiat currency collapse.  Trick is to cash out your shorts for a profit and buy tangible assets before the currency collapse.  You might have years or decades to do this, or only days.  Either way I enjoy 'playing the game'.  Keeps my mind off reality.....